The Arizona sentinel., 1887-05-14
GATHERING VANILLA.
How the Indians of Mexico Cultivate the Plant and Prepare It for Market.

Plant and Prepare It for Market.
 The vanilla plant is found native in Mexico, South America and the West Indies, but it is only in the wild val leys near the eastern coast of the first mentioned country that the vanilla bean is found possessing the charac- teristic which makes it valuable for the use of man. In the other countries it attains no perfection, and is practically worthless. The vanilla is an orchid, and is cultivated rudely by the Mexi- can Indians, and by them brought into the seaports and marketed, very large Iy in Vera Cruz. Of the great natural beauties and wonderful tropical feat ures, especially the profuse tropical vegetation of Mexico, the reader has doubtless heard or read. In the great valley of fMazatlan--an immense sunken hole in the ground, a depression of more than six thousand feet i'll its inn mediate surroundings, where every manifestation of nature is on ground scale, vegetation unrivaled in luxuri- ance and beauty, ferns being found there seventy feet in height-in this valley vanilla 6ourishes in a wild state, and here the supply of that flaw bring for the chocolate of Montezuma was obtained, and the region round about is the vanilla center of the world. Nothing can exceed the jealousy of the natives in guarding its production from the eyes or the cognizance of the outside world, and all the peculiari- ties of Mexican outdoor life are illus trated in the brigandage which both protects and preys upon the industry. But few whites ever penetrate to Ma zatlan, and it is only at great risk of life and lavish outlay that excursions are ever made to that point. Few care to attempt the adventure.
 The Indians cultivate by tying the plant to a shrub, when, being an orchid, it vegetates upon the air. For the first four years of its life it bears no fruit, and after that continues in bear ing until fifteen years old. The blos- sons are in clusters, somewhat re- sembling lilacs, but white in color, and of the most powerful perfume, similar to tuberoses. The green fruit, or beans, depend from a stock, clustered like bananas, which they nearly resemble in size every way while the fruit is green. It is gathered when not quite ripe, but before the harvesting the beans have diminished two or three on stock. These green beans, when gathered, weigh from sixty to seventy five pounds per one thousand (they are handled and sold by thousands), but dwindle in the process of curing, so that their weight finally is but from ten to fourteen pounds per one thousand, and shrink from an inch, or rarely two inches, in circumference to an attenuated pod not much larger than pipe-stem.
 To cure properly requires about ninety days time, and the manipula- ton is almost infinite, each bean being handled critically from three hundred to five hundred times in the process by the Indians. The green beans. as gath cred, are disposed of in layers-first layer of beans and then blanket, and so on till pile is formed of alternate layers of beans and blankets. This is called the sweating process, and during its continuance the piles are turned two or three time day, until most of lhe water has been ''sweated'' out. This process is followed by drying in the sun, and here the natives exercise the utmost care and attention. When finished the beans are to be the color of very dark cigar. Analyst.